Crying Firewhiskey
by measurebeyondwit
Summary: Caradoc Dearborn wasn't always a drunken arse who enjoyed having sex with all the birds he could pick up. Before that he had a best friend. He had a brother. He had someone who loved him unconditionally. But not all good things in life remain.


Disclaimer: I own nothing here, I give all the credit in the world to JK Rowling. But then I give myself a lot of credit for coming up with my own canon creations as to what happened to this unsung, future Order member. Minor characters matter too.

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**Crying Firewhiskey**

He was gone. His lungs no longer contained oxygen. His heart was no longer beating. His nerve endings were no longer sending messages throughout the rest of his body. Stephen Dearborn was dead. He was 9 years old, and his deep brown eyes no longer sparkled with anything but what appeared to be a tear. He was cold as ice, and as still as stone. He was dead.

Caradoc Dearborn, however, was not. He was 13, and blissfully unaware that anything out of the ordinary has just occurred. There were sparkles in his eyes, but instead of tears, they were filled with large amounts of mischief. You see, Caradoc Dearborn was a 13 year old wizard, and the only thing he cared more about than which Quidditch team was winning, was his little brother. The pair of them were close, and their parents sometimes wondered if they should have just been born twins, instead of the 4 year age difference. But it suited them just fine, except of course when Doc went off to Hogwarts.

This last year, Docs second year, was especially difficult. Alexander and Ophelia Dearborn, Stephen and Docs parents, had become increasingly busy with their work, and while Doc was spared from this, Stephen was stuck with the family House Elf. So the both of them wrote each other constantly, sharing information, updating each other on the happenings, and revealing the constant throbbing of pain that they felt without the other; they were each other's confidants. There was no other person of whom they trusted as much, and as much as they both loved their friends, blood was thicker than water.

But as Doc Second year ended, and the summer began, darkness crept into the crevices of their lives. Their parents disappeared more frequently, and their normally civil and close relationship began to take a turn for the worse. They needed each other, and they relied on each other, but that did nothing to soothe the fire of feeling left behind. Stephen especially wanted to get involved with things more, but Doc, always looking out for his younger brother, advised him against it. Doc was always the protecting sort, and at this point in his life, incredibly level headed. Actually, he was a model son, and as close as he could ever be to a model student. He wanted to be a role model for his brother, and Stephen planned on following suit as soon as he was eligible to go to Hogwarts. He wanted to be just like his big brother, but that wish would never come to path.

A hit and run, it apparently involved some sort of muggle transportation, and it also apparently involved Stephen Dearborn. At least that was the story a very distraught Doc received from his very somber looking parents. He died on impact, they said, there was no pain, just immediate release from this world. The attempts at consoling Doc could go no further than that before he left the comfort of his home, and into the darkness of a world that killed his brother; his only brother, the only person who seemed to be able to keep him sane.

The cold night air was a relief to a now grief ridden Doc. Hot, angry tears were now making their way down his slowly changing teenage face. The pain of everything was all consuming, and all encompassing. He couldn't quite believe that his brilliant little brother could be killed by some stupid muggle machine. Why didn't he simply move? Why didn't he scream? Why was he anywhere that he could possibly be in danger in the first place? There was no rhyme or reason to death, the 13 year old Doc concluded. There was no rhyme or reason to life either, he added in his head.

Doc was back in Hogwarts, now a third year with a completely different attitude. Where he was previously optimistic, he now turned bitter and pessimistic. Where he was kind and gentle, he now turned callous and distant. His friends still stuck with him, and he never told them what happened during that summer. But a constant cloud of misery seemed to hover above his head. Some days would be clearer than others, other days there would be a constant mist surrounding his entire being.

That all changed though, during a miraculous win over Gryffindor, the Ravenclaw tower was having a large party in celebration. Usually Doc tended to avoid large social gatherings, finding that they reminded him far too much of the parties that his parents used to through in honor of the holidays that he and his brother would always attend. But for some reason, it seemed right, almost destined. So Doc went, and he danced, and for the first time he drank as well. At first not quite knowing what he had just put into his mouth, but secondly figuring out that he didn't quite care anyway.

The firewhiskey burned the back of his throat, and he started to choke on it, but eventually settled himself down to take another swig. The feeling it gave him was euphoric, like his entire existence had just been found. Eventually after the third cup, Doc wasn't quite feeling anything except the beat of the music, and the soft bodies of birds far older than he was. There was no guilt, no pain, no anger, no confusion, just pure instinctual feelings of lust, and want.

It was at this party that Doc not only had his first drink, but had his first hangover, his first kiss, his first proper snog, and finally his first proper shag. But most importantly it was this party, and that firewhiskey that switched something inside the still 13 year old boy. It was a fire, that the firewhiskey seemed to keep tending to each time it entered his body. The fire burned, and smoldered, and turned into his life force. He was no longer relying on people, people who could so easily be lost, and so easily be gained. But a feeling, an addiction, something that made him feel alive, and something that kept his previous feelings invisible to his troubled mind. There was nothing except him and blissful ignorance, and the memory in the back of his brain that remembered that he wanted to make his brother proud, and he was failing.


End file.
